meghan9436

I realise that I turned into a ghost these last few weeks, and I want to apologise for that. I just wanted to quickly post an update that I am alive and okay, but just very, very busy.

I just got finished with my visa renewal process this week, and I was approved for a three year extension of stay.YAY!

Last week, I started studying the Spice Girls on guitar. Truth be told, I used to be a hater back in the day! I crtiticised the Spice Girls and all the manufactured boy bands for not writing songs or playing their own instruments. But even if it was manufactured pop music, it was undeniably catchy!

My role as an English teacher in Japan also gave me a new appreciation for dance. Because even if the bands don't play instruments, it still takes a lot of talent to actually get up on stage to sing and dance well.

Stop was the one song from the Spice Girls that I liked, but I was surprised to learn that this song from the girls didn't chart to number 1. But I still wonder how the Spice Girls would have done if they had played their own instruments, and how they would have been perceived.

With the usage of a backing track, and without their band performing on stage with them a lot of the time, it does make their music more difficult to study. I'm still up for the challenge though!

The timing of this couldn't have been more perfect because within hours of me first learning how to play Stop, the girls posted on their community page that they just celebrated their 27th anniversary of the release of their debut album with a photo from Tokyo.

I hope to make a more substantial update about how things are going very soon. Take care.

As I mentioned in my last post, this last week has been chaos. I got a three day weekend in lieu of working six days in a row at my main job during the last week. But, some family issues inevitably came up and spoiled my weekend. Despite that, I'm doing my best to make the best of what is left of my weekend, and return to work tomorrow feeling refreshed.

In case if it was missed, I posted a new video here with a small "back to school" haul even though the season has already passed in Japan between March and April. I feel that this video is really going to set the tone for my channel going forward, and I'm excited to share more of what I've been working on behind the scenes with you!

I said back in June that VHS quality footage kind of freaks me out in a way, especially when it is compiled together to document VHS generation loss. I grew up in the time period, and it didn't freak anybody out at the time. If anyone wore out a favourite VHS tape, they just bought a new one. I think it's the compilation and seeing the destruction of the footage in one sitting is what makes it so unsettling.

But I came across this channel over the weekend that made me reassess my opinion on this. The makers of this channel doesn't pull any punches, and they have a lot of the crude and gross jokes that we remember from the 90s. If you're able to get past that stuff, it is wild how convincing, and well put together their channel is. All of a sudden, this old VHS technology that we cringe and shudder at has become a novelty again.

While I was growing up in the time period, we always gravitated to the latest technology that came out. We made the transition from audio cassettes and Walkmans to the Discman with Triple Shockwave Anti-Skip Protection™, to generic mp3 players to the Apple iPod. A lot of us in my friend circles kicked our feet a lot at the idea of upgrading to the iPhone from our candy bar/clam shell phones. But honestly, after making that upgrade years ago... Does anyone want to go back to T9 texting? A physical keyboard may still be nice because touch screens can't quite replicate the physical mechanics of one, but still.

Because we always adapted to new technology, I think it is important that we continue to do so. It's more necessary than ever, since practically everything we do is online now.

At the same time, I don't think we should outright reject the old technologies because they are such an important part of our history. I think that it possible to do a hybrid project that uses both old and new technologies. Despite my previous feelings towards VHS tapes, I was already doing this with my hand painted animations in conjunction with assorted iPhones, and a ten year old MacBook for editing.

Another rabbit hole(s) I found on YouTube that got us here are old footage and family videos:

Renting videos at a Blockbuster store in 1993
People watching at a mall in 1996
90's Grunge Dreams #1: Summer 1994 Home Movies
90s Kids Throw 4th of July Party (1996)
90s Kids - Grunge House Party (1997)

These videos truly are a time capsule, and they recapture the essence of the era. Being born in '86, I wasn't quite old enough to fully appreciate the height of the 90s because I was still too young to attend parties and everything. I still experienced much of the culture however, from neighbourhood cook outs and that sort of thing. We experienced a lot of music, TV, and movies this way.

However, I was old enough to catch the end of the 90s and the new millennium with clarity. I still can't believe that my parents allowed me to attend a bush party. Even though there assurances were made that the party was clean, there was tobacco and alcohol. But I was such a goody two-shoes at the time that I didn't partake in any of it. Seriously!

I was so terrified of getting in trouble and getting yelled at that I did everything by the book. I still didn't snitch on my classmates though. I don't know if I regret the experience, but if I could do it all again I probably would have declined the invite. It's not to say that parties can't be fun when you're cold-stone sober. But it is the aftermath that can get you into a lot of trouble, especially if underage drinking and smoking is taking place. I would be surprised if weed wasn't also present at said bush party.

Even though the events that I described above still feels fresh in my mind, it still feels like a lifetime ago. It's a weird space that we're in now. Although the previously demonized marijuana has been legal in Canada for some time, I will have to remain sober as it is still illegal in Japan and many parts of the US, as well as for personal reasons.

We are making progress as a global society, but we're losing a lot of the culture and face to face interaction that we had before. One more video I want to leave with you today is this release from a Canadian comedian who talks about the problems of this new space that we're in and the technology that we have. It's nice to have a computer in our pockets that also acts as a camera, but is it destroying what little remains of our privacy as we go about our daily activities?